1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to methods and apparatus for applying tabs to the end of pressure sensitive tape. In a factory for producing rolls of pressure sensitive tape, such tab application is subsequent to formation of the roll of tape.
2. Prior Art
For several decades, it has been customary to market rolls of pressure sensitive tape with a tab at the forward end thereof. In retail stores, if a shoplifter steals a short length of tape from a roll, the appearance of the roll is changed so that a prospective buyer can recognize a tampered roll. Such use of tabs has had a deterrent effect minimizing such shoplifting.
Those types of tapes which are produced in large quantities merit the use of sophisticated automated machinery requiring little handling of the rolls by humans. However, wide tapes, colored tapes, and/or other specialty items must be processed so that an appropriate tab is applied by a worker. It has been standard practice for the workers to employ scissors for cutting the end of the tape and/or for cutting the end of the strip of tab material when applying the tab to such tape.
Heretofore there have been machines which fed strips of material from directions which differed by a right angle. Loeffler et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,227,960 advances a web of jacketing material through a zone in which a strip of pressure sensitive tape advances from a perpendicular direction so that the tape is applied across the width of the advancing web. Woods et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,227,955 applies sealing tapes to both ends of a carton, the tapes having pull tabs for expediting the opening of the carton.